15 Things You Might Not Know About Carol Burnett

Mike Crisolago | April 26th, 2016

In honour of her birthday, we’ve dug up 15 facts you might not know about the Queen of Comedy.

Most people know of Carol Burnett’s multiple Emmy Awards, Golden Globes and various other honours, so we’ve dug up 15 facts you might not know about the 84-year-old actress as a little ear tug of our own for the decades of laughs she’s provided.

1. Burnett was raised primarily by her grandmother, given that both of her parents struggled with alcoholism. This grandmother—Mabel Eudora White—is the same person Burnett would signal with a tug of her ear at the end of every episode of The Carol Burnett Show, her way of saying, “I love you.”

3. Burnett originally planned to study journalism in university. She switched majors and instead decided to focus on playwriting. It was only when performing in a pre-requisite acting course that she discovered her love of performing.

4. Her mother, however, made no secret of what she believed was Burnett’s calling. According to the actress herself, “She wanted me to be a writer. She said you can always write, no matter what you look like. When I was growing up she told me to be a little lady, and a couple of times I got a whack for crossing my eyes or making funny faces. Of course, she never, I never, dreamed I would ever perform.”

5. An anonymous benefactor bankrolled Burnett’s venture from California to New York to pursue her acting dreams. After a student performance at UCLA a man approached her and offered her $1000 to get her to the Big Apple. All Burnett had to do in return was pay the loan back within five years, without interest, pay the favour forward if she made it big and never reveal the man’s name.

6. Burnett has a history of appearing on children’s TV shows. One of her earliest gigs was playing a ventriloquist dummy’s love interest on a kids show and, later, after she’d achieved her fame, she became the first ever celebrity guest star on Sesame Street, appearing on the show’s inaugural episode in 1969.

7. She starred in a sitcom called Stanley alongside comedian Buddy Hackett as his girlfriend. The show only lasted for half a season in 1956 before being yanked due to low ratings.

8. In the 1960s, Lucille Ball, who’d helped mentor Burnett, offered to create and produce a sitcom specifically for her. Burnett, who had other career ambitions, turned it down.

13. Burnett believes bad weather is a good omen.According to Biography.com, “From taking tests at school to opening days of shows she was in, she’s trusted that bad weather was a good sign. It was raining the night she talked Eddie Foy, Jr. into giving her his agent’s number, it rained the night she hit the stage for the first time in Once Upon a Mattress, and it rained the first day of work at The Carol Burnett Show.”

14. Burnett has guest-starred on a number of television shows, including Magnum P.I., All My Children (of which she was a huge fan), Touched By An Angel, Glee, Mad About You and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. The latter two earned her Emmy nominations and she won the award, in 1997, for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for Mad About You.

15. Burnett’s third husband, Brian Miller, is 23 years younger than her. He performs with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and the couple have been married since 2001.